Naruto: The New Age
by Onimaru88
Summary: A story of my own creation with all new characters based 90 years in the future of Naruto. Contains decedents of the original characters as well as new clans and jutsu.
1. The Gymnasium?

**This is obviously not the original Naruto, but still has several concepts retaining to the original. This story is based approximately 90 years in the future of Naruto (not the Shipuuden). I own nothing other than the characters that i myself have created.**

In the city of Toniuk, a newly established city of the previous five shinobi villages, Soiryu Onimaru attended school in the New Konoha district. He had been sent a letter supposedly from his parents, but he knew it was really from the school, that had told him to go directly to the abandoned gymnasium outside the school that had been around since the collapse of the shinobi economic system.

Onimaru had been trained in the ways of the shinobi secretly due to the fact that merely being a ninja caused a person to be shunned in the new society. He had no memory of the time in which the society of the shinobi flourished, however. This was probably because of the fact that he was born just after the war that defined the fall of the shinobi.

He walked down the sidewalk toward the gymnasium that the false letter had specified. His best friend Usashi Shinya was close behind him, but not close enough to actually speak to. He hadn't seen her in a month or two, since they had only chatted on the phone over the summer. Her dark brown hair was still just as he remembered it, just past her shoulders and in a ponytail. She wore a pink short-sleeve t-shirt that was tight enough to show her form, but not too tight to be revealing. Her blue-jeans fit similarly to her shirt. As always, she looked good. At the moment he was content in his own thoughts, so he did not stop to wait for her. He was thinking too heavily about the letter.

Rather than deciphering the letter, he just kept running over what it said in his head. He couldn't remember exactly what it said, but knew that it had said he had been invited to some type of after-school function to receive more "learning" than the school could give him during actual school hours. He suspected that "learning" meant more than just textbook stuff, but he couldn't think of what else it would entail.

Having left his backpack in his locker since there was no homework because it was the first day of the school year, Onimaru had reached the gymnasium and he walked into the building through the double doors on the side. The room seemed to be the size of the gymnasium that was inside the actual school, but unlike the gym, there were no basketball hoops or bleachers there. There wasn't even the colorful tape on the floor. It was just a plain hardwood floor.

He noticed that there were a few people already standing near the center of the room, but still somewhat spread out. They were all about a year under his age, making them freshmen like him. He recognized most of them, but at the distance he was at he couldn't tell exactly who they were, one of them, however, he didn't seem to have either seen or noticed before in school. One of the two.

Onimaru began to walk over to the group when the door behind him opened. He glanced back. Shinya, had walked into the room. He paused to let her catch up. Now that he was actually in the designated place, he felt a sudden urge to talk to her. "Hey."

"Hey." she said as they began to walk toward the larger group of kids. "Got any idea why we're here."

"Not really." And he didn't. Most of the time select students weren't _extended_ invitations to after school functions, at or away from school, at least not in middle school, but now they were freshmen and the rules might have changed.. He mentally counted the number of people in the room. Including Shinya and himself, there were ten, all freshmen from what he could tell. "Let's see if someone else knows."

She shrugged. "Okay." They weren't close enough to ask anyone yet, but he could tell who they were now. There was Shinya and himself, obviously, and he also spotted Taichi Izomu. Izomu was kind of an ass, but most everybody, especially girls, seemed to like him, even if he was a pervert. He was also kind of a cheery person, too cheery at times, but for some reason, it made him popular. In school he was kind of snotty and extremely cocky. He had straight, short brown hair that laid down in a way that made him look good to the girls. Onimaru thought it made him look kind of stupid though. He was somewhat muscular, but not to the point that it showed though his clothes; the only reason Onimaru knew was that he'd had a gym class with him in middle school.

Standing near Izomu, probably admiring him, were a group of girls: Ero Kuede, Inuzuka Yani, and Moshida Tira. Yani and Kuede were distant cousins, both descendant of the Inuzuka family, in fact, Yani still had the name. Both of them still retained some of the anthropomorphic traits belonging to the family, such as fangs and eyes similar to that of a dog's. Izomu didn't seem to like it, but Onimaru found it sexy, especially in Kuede. Yani had blond hair that reached her shoulders, whereas Kuede had brown hair that was slightly shorter and she liked to change the way she wore it frequently. Yani either liked to wear form-fitting clothing or hooded-sweatshirts and she almost always had a pair of jeans on, and if she didn't, she wore a pair of what looked like jogging pants. These were probably days when she didn't want to mess with the form fitting stuff. She was currently wearing a form-fitting shirt. Kuede also liked to wear jeans, but favored more loosely fitting clothes and rarely wore any kind of sweatshirts. Both of them seemed to like to be nice to people whenever possible, but Yani was kind of quiet and stayed within her own group of friends and Kuede was very forward and outspoken, letting everyone know what she thought.

Onimaru didn't know Tira too well, but he did notice that she liked to joke and have fun. Like Yani, Tira seemed to like form-fitting clothes and sweatshirts, but seemed to always wear something that even though it was somewhat tight, there was room for movement. Her light brown hair was always in a ponytail, but if she ever let it down, it would probably be just short of her shoulders.

Yano Setsuna was standing off by herself, as always, and staring off as if she could see something everyone else could not. She was always kind of weird that way and nobody really knew why. She seemed to like either jean or sweat-pants. She also liked hooded sweatshirts and rarely wore anything else, but when she did, she didn't wear anything too tight.

Raishi Kimio was talking with Metohatsuba Kaita a ways off. They were closest to the door. Kimio didn't have very many friends, but seemed to like it that way, considering her demeanor scared a lot of people away and she didn't seem to care. She also had a fondness for black and yellow. She, also, liked form-fitting clothing and jeans, but almost never wore sweaters. She wore _something_ yellow almost every day. Every once in a while she'd come to school scratched, bruised, or even cut. Some people thought she was abused at home. She also liked to wear sarashi wrap around her hands and almost up to her elbows. In fact, Onimaru realized, he had never seen her without her sarashi. She told anyone that asked that she just liked the way it looked.

Kaita was kind of similar to Kimio, but he seemed as if the attitude he had, had been carved into him by something in his past. If that was the reason, however, nobody knew exactly what it was. Kaita seemed to wear black everyday. Not the baggy pants with chains on them that a lot of people seemed to wear, just the color. He wore jeans and t-shirts mostly. His hair was white and his eyes silver. A lot of girls seemed to like him, but he didn't seem to understand why and avoided most girls. He was intelligent, especially when it came to chemistry, even though he hadn't taken any classes in the subject yet.

Onimaru turned to Shinya as they approached the general vicinity of where everyone was standing. He nodded toward the kid he didn't know. "Know who that is?"

"His name's Shikaku Origama," She began, "I don't know much about him, except that he's always by himself, almost like he chooses to be. He just transfered her from the North District at the end of last year." She paused and glanced him over. "He is kind of cute though." Onimaru glanced him over as well, but for an entirely different reason. Origama had shaggy brown hair that was straight and slightly over an inch in length, but it seemed spiky in a way. He had a smooth, yet somehow frightening appearance to his face. He also seemed somewhat scrawny and pale, but instead of making him look less threatening, that just increased the fact that he looked dangerous. He war a short sleeve t-shirt the color of sand and a matching pair of shorts. He looked oddly familiar even though Onimaru knew he had never seen him before.

"Ah." Onimaru could pretty much tell she liked him, even if it was only a little. In order to ask if anyone knew why they were there, he'd need their attention. He did the first thing that came to mind. In the loudest, most obnoxious voice he could muster, he yelled "Hello everybody!" As he'd planned, everyone looked at him. Getting their attention had worked, even if everyone was now annoyed with him. Shinya shook her head and smiled as if to tell him "You're an idiot." He just smiled at her, feeling like... an idiot.

He turned back toward the group, "Now that I have your attention," he began. "does anyone know why we're here?" The room was silent. He waited for a minute for someone to get an idea. Either no one had one or they didn't want to tell everyone else what they thought. Onimaru was getting annoyed himself now. "Are you guys telling me that out of ten people, we can't think of one idea?!"

Before anyone could respond to Onimaru's remark the doors at the edge of the room opened and Kotetskai Kazemaru entered the room. He wasn't the person Onimaru wanted to see. Not only was he a smart-ass, but he also had kind of a sick sense of humor. "Make that eleven." he said. Not very many people liked Kazemaru; mainly because he was decedent of the infamous Orochimaru. His eyes and skin proved it. His straight black hair was down past his shoulder blades. His eyes were emerald green and looked like that of a snake's. Kazemaru's eyes were the only eyes Onimaru had ever noticed (besides Yani's, Kaita's, and Kuede's); simply because they were unique. Kazemaru's skin was a pasty color. He normally wore white, which Onimaru thought was an attempt to make his skin look like it had more pigment. If Kazemaru wasn't such a prankster, Onimaru might have liked him. He was always doing something to prank anyone he could, but Onimaru suspected that Kazemaru was a really cool person when he wasn't trying to prank someone. The problem was that he always was.

"Make that twelve." Another voice said as Funhohetsuke Onro seemed to appear from nothingness right in front of Onimaru. That was strange, but then again, not much that Onro did wasn't strange. He seemed a lot like Setsuna, but he was more vocal. You could never tell what he was going to wear. Today he chose to dress in just a plain gray short sleeve t-shirt with a pocket on the chest and a pair of black shorts. He had blond hair that was straight, smooth, and about an inch and a half in length. He seemed to always be looking for a way out of any room he was in.

"How long have you been here Onro?" Onimaru asked.

"Long enough." Onro replied, implying he'd heard Onimaru's question about why they were there.

"Got any thoughts?"

"Yeah." Onro turned to address the group more directly. Onimaru noticed that nobody seemed that shaken by Onro's sudden appearance. "Anyone here besides me know how to execute jutsu?" Onro asked.

"Yeah." Onimaru stated, raising an eyebrow. "I do."

"Me too." It was Shinya. Onimaru smirked, knowing she probably had some pretty awesome jutsu, even though he was slightly surprised.

"And me." This time it was Izomu.

"And me." Tira.

Origama nodded. Setsuna did the same. Kuede and Yani both raised their hands. Kimio crossed her arms and smiled. Kaita raised his hand as well. Everyone turned to Kazemaru.

Onimaru knew he was about to do something that would prove he was a jack-ass.

Kazemaru looked up at everybody. "What?" His voice had a slight rasp to it that reminded Onimaru of a snake. Nobody answered. "Oh. Right. Jutsu." he answered his own question. He opened his mouth and his tongue instantly began to grow in length. It moved toward them, _fast_. Before anyone could react, Kazemaru was nearly licking Kimio in the face, but she hadn't flinched. She almost instantly grabbed his tongue and twisted it around her hand. She gave him a glare that would have made even the strongest men flinch. "If you _ever_ try that again," she told him, "The next thing you see after the sole of my foot, will be the ceiling of a hospital room a month from now." She grinned slightly and Onimaru knew she wasn't lying. "I'll break every bone in your body." She released his tongue and it retracted back into his mouth.

Kazemaru grinned as if he was holding back laughter. "Point taken."

Kaita let out a slight laugh, himself. "I'd be a little more afraid if I were you Kazemaru. She'll tear you limb from limb without a second thought if your not careful." Kimio gave another slight grin and nodded in agreement with Kaita's statement.

"Anyway," Onro reminded them, "I think we're here so we can train together, instead of alone like we have been up 'till now."

"By the school? Yeah right." Izomu had finally taken his eyes off the girls and put his word in.

"I'd believe it." Onimaru said. "My brother's been actin' kind of shady ever since he became a freshmen. Maybe the school is sponsored by someone who still needs shinobi in today's world. Besides, the letters were addressed from our parents, right?" Having no dispute at this he added, "How else would the school know to invite twelve people that know how to do jutsu to the same place and know not to invite anyone else?" Everybody seemed to agree. It was possible, even if highly unlikely, considering that most shinobi had been wiped out when fully automatic guns that were small enough to be carried on an individual's person were invented. There still were the skilled shinobi that survived and were fast enough not to be in the way when the guns started firing. It could go either way.

Shinya seemed pissed at Kazemaru for what he tried to do but was trying to maintain her calm. "I agree with Onimaru and Onro." She glanced at Kazemaru, then Kimio. "They're probably trying to see how well we'll work together."

The lights suddenly went out.

**I'll stop here. hope you guys enjoy my writing style and i hope that you keep reading my story as i put it up. I would also like to ask for reviews. some constructive criticism is always nice. **


	2. Teachers

**There is a perspective change in this chapter. The perspective change is identified by -------------------------------- on its own line. Once again, I own nothing except my own characters.**

The lights suddenly went out. It was pitch black. Not even the door emitted light from the cracks. Everyone started yelling about what was going on. Onimaru decided to ignore everybody and find out for himself what was going on. He did a hand-seal and tried to sense other people's chakra.

Including himself, he sensed twelve people in the center of the room, but at the edge of the room, there were four unidentified chakra signatures. He didn't take the time to tell everyone to shut up, he just did his hand-seal and whispered to himself "_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu_." He created four shadow clones; one for each unknown person. He stood still while he had his clones do hand-seals. He had no need to be quiet anymore because the jutsu he was about to use gave off light. "_Chidori_!" all four clones shouted in unison.

Four sparks, four spheres of electrical energy, and four shadow clones charging four possible opponents. Everyone grew quiet as they watched Onimaru's clones dash into the darkness towards people they didn't know were there. As the the clones got closer to their targets, they began to become visible through the light the _chidori_ gave off. Even though Onimaru had sensed four people, he only saw three, and for some reason they were lined up like they had expected to be attacked.

One of them was finishing doing hand-seals, the other two just stood there. As the shadow clones neared their targets, the only girl put up her hands and locked her fingers. With that, one of the clones froze, as if it couldn't move a muscle in its body.

The second clone was about to reach the person who'd done the hand-seals and began to wind up for attack. The person simply poked the clone in the forehead and it was destroyed in a puff of smoke. Onimaru cursed the blind spot that the chidori generated without the aid of some type of Doujutsu.

The next clone reached the spot where the fourth person should have been standing. Still no one was there. The clone began to look around as the last clone approached the final target. Onimaru didn't see the person move, but the clone was suddenly destroyed anyway. Onimaru heard a girl near him breathe in sharply.

Just when the clone with no target began to turn to attack one of the other three another person, a girl, seemed to grow from nothingness at the clone's feet, using the inertia of growth to uppercut the clone in the chin. The clone was destroyed instantly.

The one remaining shadow clone was the one that seemed to be somehow frozen. The girl who had locked her fingers seemed to study the face of the clone. Then her fingers twitched and the clone was destroyed. Darkness once again filled the room.

"Damn." Onimaru said to himself. Not only had they defeated each one of his clones with ease, they had made him look like an amateur in doing it. A few seconds passed in silence. Seconds soon turned into minutes. Onimaru would have attacked again by using other's attacks to disguise his movements, but nobody even tried to attack. Not only that, but nobody moved.

Suddenly the lights came back on. It took a second for everyone's eyes to adjust, but when they did, the four people that Onimaru had attacked were still there, standing almost exactly where they were when he did. Before anybody could make sense of the situation, the girl who had somehow frozen Onimaru's clone spoke. "Pathetic!" she began, "Only one of you attacks an unknown threat and then you all give up?! You should all be ashamed of yourselves! I'm surprised any of you even made it this far! At least this kid tried!" She pointed forcefully at Onimaru. She had straight brown hair about as long as Shinya's, but hers wasn't in a ponytail. She wore a faded bright orange shirt and loose-fitting jeans. Her figure looked kind of boyish.

Even though he already looked bad, Izomu sprang toward the girl in what Onimaru guessed was and attempt to make himself look better. In mid-stride, he somehow launched himself into the air to about half the height of the room. He had clearly over-shot his target. Then without touching anything but air, he suddenly moved in a strait line through the air directly at the girl. She raised one had, and with two fingers somehow redirected Izomu's trajectory. She lifted her arm and let Izomu's shoulders collide with it, effectively clothes-lining him.

He hit the floor with a loud thud and began to roll around, letting out yelps of pain. "That's more like it!" the girl announced, not really appearing to care that she'd hurt him. "Even if it was a little bit late."

"Ouch." Onimaru heard himself mutter. That had to have hurt. Izomu probably even had a concussion.

"Geese Mina." the person who'd poked Onimaru's shadow clone said. "Go easy on 'em. Damn. They're just freshmen." Onimaru looked at him and all he could think was 'nerd.' The guy was a twig, and not only that, his short straight brown hair, his glasses and even the way he dressed; it all shouted 'nerd.'

"Oh come on Ki-Sho!" Mina said as she shrugged. "Can't you see I was just having some fun?" She glared at him with a half smile on her face. "Ass."

Ki-Sho began to help Izomu up. "Bitch." Her smirk grew to a full broad smile. She seemed almost proud of what Ki-Sho had meant to be an insult. He ignored her and finished helping Izomu to his feet. Izomu was wobbling back and forth as he stood. He definitely had a concussion. Ki-Sho examined him for a couple seconds. Then he did a few hand-seals and placed his hand on Izomu's head. Izomu's wobbling seemed to lessen and Ki-Sho lifted his hand off Izomu's head after a few seconds.

Izomu turned back to the group of freshmen and started back. He stumbled a few times but seemed to be doing fine.

Onimaru realized now that Ki-Sho was a medical class shinobi. When he poked Onimaru's shadow clone he'd probably been using the chakra scalpel. He'd probably done what he could to help with Izomu's concussion, but seeing as how concussions dealt with the brain, his help hadn't fixed it entirely, seeing as how the brain was vastly uncharted territory, even for the most advance medical shinobi.

"Who are you?" Origama asked. His tone was smooth and calm, yet his demeanor told Onimaru that he was excited, that he wanted to attack.

"Better than you." Mina answered.

"Shut your damn mouth already Mina!" Ki-Sho hissed.

"What?" she asked casually, "We are."

Ki-Sho was given no choice but to ignore her once again. He turned to the group. "Anyway," he began, "I'm Yano Ki-Sho," He pointed at the other guy out of the four "This is Korasitashigawaki Torishima." Torishima didn't seem to have a single hair on his body, and his posture was near perfect. He wore a greenish garb that seemed to be designed for fighting, though form-fitting at the same time.

Ki-Sho then pointed to the girl who'd seemingly grown from nothingness. "This is Kutarro Motoko." Motoko was one of the most attractive girls Onimaru had ever seen. She had unruly hair that was just above her shoulders and that was dyed a pale shade of purple. She had an excellent figure and wore a bright orange short sleeve t-shirt that brought out the color of her hair. She wore a pair of shorts that were an exuberant shade of blue. For the first time in his life, Onimaru found himself drawn to the eyes of someone who didn't have abnormal ones. They were a beautiful shade of light green.

Finally, Ki-Sho pointed to Mina. "And _this_ is the bitch, Yokryo Mina." Mina took a bow. Ki-Sho shook his head and sighed before he continued, "We'll be your teachers and mentors until you graduate."

"So this is sponsored by the school." Shinya confirmed what they'd all been thinking. "Why?"

"All the machine-guns did was wipe out the Genin and lower class Chuunin." Motoko began, "most of the Jounin and the kage's all lived, and were even able to fight off the people with the guns, but they saw that they'd have a very difficult time trying to train more shinobi, so they invested in the modern school system to train them in secret. Those who didn't have the skill to go up against those with the guns were eliminated before their real training began. Yours' starts now."

"So," Kaita said, "we're the only ones that have the potential to fight people with guns out of our entire class?"

"Pretty much," Mina said as she shrugged, "but the key word in that was _potential_. I don't think any one of you is ready at the moment, and I sure as hell don't think all of you will complete the training and graduate as a shinobi. Even the four of us are having trouble making a career out of it. To be able to get a job as a shinobi you'll have to graduate at the top of the class, but you won't know how well you did until you graduate."

"What do you mean your having trouble?" asked Setsuna, staring at Ki-Sho.

"We graduated as shinobi, but no one would hire us." Ki-Sho explained. "Either because of our jutsu specialty, or because we didn't stack up to the rest of our graduating class. So we agreed to train a generation in the same manner that we were trained in order to get our skills up and at least be doing something."

"Today," Mina interrupted, "you guys are going to introduce yourselves to us, and tell us the type of jutsu you specialize in." She pointed at Origama, who stood furthest to one of the sides of the group. "Let's start with you."

"Origama. Sand." His answer was short, sweet and to the point and his voice was smooth and cold. Onimaru guessed that Origama was usually like that, considering that this was the only the second time he's spoken since Onimaru had arrived.

Kazemaru hit his thumb to his chest as he introduced himself. "Kazemaru. I use snake-like jutsu."

Shinya smiled in confidence. "Shinya. Fire jutsu, so far."

Kimio cracked her knuckles. "Kimio. Taijutsu." That explained how she'd been so fast earlier. Taijutsu users normally were extremely fast.

Onimaru cracked his neck. "Onimaru. Melee jutsu."

"Kaita. Absolute defense."

"Setsuna. Medical jutsu, like my older brother." She pointed to Ki-Sho.

"Don't think I'll go easy on you just 'cause your my little sister Setsuna." Ki-Sho interjected.

"Onro. Stealth" He made a quick glance to the door.

"Kuede. Earth jutsu and a little bit of animal type jutsu."

"Tira. Weapons specialist." Her fingers twitched at her sides as if they were missing something that completed them.

"Yani. Animal type jutsu."

Izomu was still recovering from his concussion. "Izomu. Gravity." He smiled, almost stupidly. "and girls."

"Good." Motoko said as they finished introductions. "Tomorrow, we pick your three-man teams, which we will be the fourth members of. Go home and get some rest. You'll need it."

"Great!" Onimaru whispered sarcastically to himself. His only friend out of the other eleven kids was Shinya, and he wasn't likely to end up on her team. Motoko hadn't said "_you'll_ pick your teams," which made his chances to be with a friend even lower.

"Oh yeah." Motoko added. "Bring any ninja tools you have. You'll be needing them too." Onimaru heard Mina chuckle.

**--------------------------------**

Later that night, five minutes past midnight, Shinya lay awake in bed. Her life had just become much more complicated, but instead of being afraid like most people she knew would be, she felt excited, like she could run a marathon non-stop at full speed and still have energy to burn. She'd been trying to get to sleep for two hours with no luck. She was just too excited.

She began to think about who's group she'd be in. After a while she managed to narrow it down to the people she might have a good time with. Onimaru, Origama, Tira, Kaita, and Yani were all people she'd have fun with on her team, or at least she thought. Mainly though, she just hoped that she wouldn't be on Kazemaru's team. That idiot was going to get himself killed doing something stupid and she didn't want to be a part of it. Plus, she just flat out didn't like him.

The team she wanted most of all, she'd decided, was Origama and Onimaru. Onimaru was a great friend, and not only that, but she was beginning to like him. She wished she had the courage to tell him, but she didn't know how it'd affect their friendship. The only problem was he wasn't _that_ attractive, he wasn't bad looking by any means, but he wasn't that good looking either. His personality made up for it though. Despite the fact that he liked to act goofy and even immature at times, he was funny, and he knew what situations called for a serious attitude, even though he preferred the goofy attitude.

Origama, on the other hand, she didn't know much about. He was hot, but he isolated himself and was always really quiet. In fact, today had been the first time she'd actually heard him speak. She wondered what kind of secrets he had and why he isolated himself from everybody.

Shinya slowly drifted off to sleep as she tried to think of reasons why Origama was the way he was.

**--------------------------------**

**I hope this chapter was an enjoyable read. I had fun writing it. I would appreciate any reviews and/or constuctive criticism anyone can offer.**


	3. Day 2: the team's construction

**Some of my readers may wonder why I use my pen name as my main character's name. The reality is that it is the other way around. Ever since I created this story I have fallen in love with the character and use his name every chance I get. I own nothing except my own characters.**

All the freshmen were here now. It had only taken them about fifteen minutes after the academic school's dismissal. At least they were all eager to learn, but they wouldn't be actually taught anything until they were put in teams, and that was going to be the fun part.

They had all brought their ninja tools as instructed as well. The kid who'd worn brown the day before carried a giant gourd on his back. The blond girl brought a dog. The girl with the sarashi wrap had worn a black jumpsuit with yellow at all the seems. Yet another had several scrolls strapped to her leg. There were also a few with carrying belts. The only one who didn't seem to have changed his appearance was Onimaru.

Mina felt a grin appear on her face as she thought about how they were going to team them up. Ki-Sho, Motoko, and Torishima were already getting the sophomores. Mina felt her smirk grow into a smile and keep getting bigger as she thought more about what was going to happen today. Watching these freshmen get put in their place would be entertaining. Some of them were a bit to cocky for their own good. At least that was the way she recalled it from when she was in high school.

She noticed that Onimaru, who seemed to be the most alert out of the new freshmen, was beginning to figure out that she was the only "teacher" there at the moment.

He began to slip away from the group and made his way to her without being noticed by anyone except the girl with the ponytail and dark hair. Mina thought her name was Shinya, but seeing as how she'd only heard the girl's name once and she hadn't done anything to be memorable, she wasn't sure.

**--------------------------------**

Onimaru was within casual speaking range with Mina. "Where're the other three?" he asked. She was the only one of the "teachers" there. He was going to have a hard time listening to her as a teacher though. She only looked like she had just gotten out of high school, she looked around his older brother Hijema's age, who was nineteen.

"You'll find out soon enough. It has to do with setting up the teams." They had something planned that would only be fun for them. Onimaru could tell just by looking at her, even though he'd just met her the day before. The smile on her face was more of an excited smile of anticipation, rather than actual happiness.

Onimaru remembered the previous day and how she'd somehow been able to control other objects. "How do you manipulate things the way you did?" Hearing the word _manipulate_ out-loud, even if he had been the one who said it, set off a spark in his mind. Before Mina could answer his question, he interrupted her with another one. "You're a puppet user, aren't you?"

She seemed pleased that he found that out himself. "Yup" was all she said.

"How come you haven't used your actual puppets yet?"

She seemed slightly surprised, then became serious. "Trust me, you don't want to see me use them, since I only use them when I have to."

Before Onimaru had a chance to ask her what that meant, Mina yelled to the group. "Okay people! Hurry up and come here."

As everyone approached Mina she said "Line up from left to right." Onimaru fell in line with the others as they all heeded Mina's instructions. "As you learned yesterday, you are about to be put into teams."

"Wait." Shinya said, "Don't we get to choose our teams?!"

"No." Mina continued. "We are going to have you fight and we will evaluate your skills and be placed into teams accordingly. Any training exercise and most missions you participate in will be with your team, though you probably won't be participating in missions for a while. Any objections?" No one spoke. "Good. The exercise you will participate in today is..." She paused and her face lit up. Onimaru feared that they would have to fight the "teachers." By the look on her face she was really anticipating what was about to happen. She finished her sentence "Each of you will fight a sophomore one-on-one, and I'd be surprised if any of you won your fights. This year's sophomores are quite good."

As if on cue eighteen people entered the room, twelve of them sophomores, three of them "teachers," and three of them upper class-men, most likely Juniors. Because Onimaru used to be in their grade, he knew most of the sophomores, but there were three he didn't recognize.

"The first one to fight will be..." Mina, still beaming, pointed at Tira, "you. Everyone else line up against the wall and wait your turn. The fight will start when the sophomore you're fighting says so."

They all began to walk toward the wall. As Onimaru passed Tira, he said the only thing that he could to encourage her, seeing as how he barely knew her. "Good luck."

She smirked and grabbed one of the four scrolls strapped to the side of her leg. As he walked away he heard her say "I'll show ya' luck." She was ready to fight. Onimaru smiled and said nothing more as he headed for the wall.

**I appologise for the short chapter, but I wanted the entire fight to be in one chapter and its a tad long, so i stopped here. Reviews would be appreciated.**


	4. The First Fight

**This chapter was fun to write. I had blast making up Takaguru's abilities and i had even more fun with the fight itself. I hope reading this chapter is as enjoyable as it was to write it! I own nothing except my own characters.**

Somunekai Takaguru stepped forward, toward the lone freshmen at the center of the room with a scroll in her hand. He'd been itching for a good fight all summer, and now it was finally here, or so he hoped. Even though she was a freshmen, he didn't want to underestimate her. The people who appeared the weakest were often among the strongest in his mind. He didn't care if he won or lost though. All that mattered to him was that she put up a good fight.

They stood a good distance from each other, but close enough to speak. "Look. I don't care if your a freshmen or not. All I want is a good fight. Give this fight your all and don't expect me to hold back. That's all I want."

She grinned confidently. "Wasn't planning on anything else. And just so you know, the name's Tira."

Takaguru felt a smile spread across his face. He liked Tira. She had an attitude. He just wanted her to have the skills to back it up. "Takaguru," he told her his name. He opened his arms as if he would let her have the first blow. "Whenever you're ready."

She nodded and bit her thumb while opening the scroll with her other hand. He let his hands fall back to his sides as she ran her bleeding thumb down the scroll and a bo-staff appeared out of it. Then the girl snapped her wrist and three shurikan appeared in her hand.

Without a moment's hesitation she whipped them at Takaguru. He managed to do two hand-seals before the shurikan reached him, and they stopped in mid-air just before they made contact and dropped to the floor. Tira seemed surprised. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to win," he told her as a smirk of confidence appeared on his face. He loved his jutsu.

The surprise faded from her face and was replaced with another grin. "This should be interesting to say the least." With that she charged. He was still holding his hands in a hand seal.

**--------------------------------**

Tira ran toward Takaguru, staring directly into his eyes. She didn't know exactly how he stopped her shurikan, but she had confidence she'd figure it out by the end of the battle. She spun her staff around herself as she approached him, using the momentum of movement to increase the power behind her coming attack. She aimed her strike directly at the side of his head. He didn't flinch. She felt her staff stop abruptly as if she had struck a rock, but the staff hadn't reached her target yet and she couldn't see whatever she'd hit with her staff.

Acting on impulse, along with the recoil of the staff, she spun around and targeted his hip with the other end of her staff. Again, he stood still and she hit another invisible wall. She attempted to uppercut him with the weapon, but she was blocked once again by a substance she could not see. Takaguru performed two more hand-seals and her arms were suddenly frozen, as if encased in transparent marble.

Takaguru kept forming hand-seals and Tira's arms were forced to her sides. He continued his seals and she was abruptly hit in the chest by another invisible object and she flew backward as the wind escaped her and she dropped her staff.

She hit the floor, but could not reach her feet or even her knees. She'd need to obtain a second wind if she wanted to get up. Winning this fight would be extremely harder than she originally thought. "Hurry up and get up." Takaguru was mocking her. He looked like he was getting bored already. "I'm not done yet."

**--------------------------------**

Kimio stood near the edge of the "gym" next to Kaita, wondering what type of technique Takaguru was using. Kazemaru, the jackass, stood near them. Tira hadn't even been able to touch Takaguru, yet he had barely moved at all. Kimio remembered the previous day when the same thing had happened to Onimaru. She suspected that she was the only one who saw Torishima move. He had moved so fast that most people that hadn't trained heavily in Taijutsu couldn't have seen it. She looked down at the sarashi wrap covering her arm and as if she could see through it, she saw all the cuts and scars on her own hands from fighting. She shook her arms from her mind. It wasn't the time to reminisce on training, it was the time to observe an interesting fight.

To Kaita, she said, "How's he stopping her attacks? You know?"

Kaita brought his hand to his chin, something he'd do frequently when he was thinking. "I don't know. He probably just makes himself really fast or something."

"No," Kazemaru interjected, "it's something different. Every time she attacks, she hits... something. It doesn't look any different form air, but it seems to be a solid."

Kimio highly doubted Kazemaru knew what he was talking about, but she agreed that he wasn't making himself any faster, she would have noticed that. "How can you know that?"

He turned toward her and pointed toward his eyes. "These aren't just for show. You may not like me, but at least I know what I see." She looked at his snake-like eyes. Kazemaru even talked with a slight hiss like a snake, and he seemed to move like one to sometimes. Kimio found snakes revolting.

"Ya' know Kimio, he might be right." Kaita was agreeing with Kazemaru.

"About which part?" She answered with a question. "The part where there's something solid in the way or that I don't like him."

Kaita sighed, but gave a slight smile nonetheless. "Both." Kimio couldn't help smiling. Kaita was one of the only people besides those in her family that could make her smile. Kimio heard Kaita gasp. "No way..."

He only did that when he found something astonishing. "What?" She knew he'd just figured out what Takaguru's ability was.

"That's genius... I think he's turning the air itself into a solid!" Kimio felt her eyes widen. If Takaguru could solidify air, then there would be little anyone could do against him, let alone Tira. The rest of this fight would either be extremely boring or extremely interesting. She hoped for interesting. Either way, she was still eager for her turn to fight.

**--------------------------------**

Kutarro Saisha watched as Tira struggled to her feet after getting the wind knocked out of her by Takaguru's "invisible" blow. Saisha had already deciphered his jutsu and knew how it worked. By concentrating his chakra into the air around him, he could actually move the air closer together on a molecular level, thus creating a synthesized solid out of air without a change in temperature or pressure. It probably used up an immense amount of chakra to pull something like that off, and he was being wasteful. He wouldn't last much longer if he kept using his jutsu when he could just as easily dodge Tira's attacks; he'd collapse from exhaustion soon if he wasn't careful.

As a rule, some juniors and seniors were allowed to witness whatever the instructors had come up with in order to test the new freshmens' abilities. This year it would be interesting to say the least. The freshmen fighting the sophomores was something Saisha couldn't pass up, even though she hated fighting. She didn't really hate fighting itself though, she knew that sometimes it was inevitable, but she hated the idea that fighting was fun. Another reason Saisha showed up to watch was that these new freshmen were going to be mentored by her older sister Motoko.

Tira was on her hands and knees now, breathing in great gulps of air as she recovered her breath. Against any of the other sophomores she would already be unconscious, but against Takaguru, the fight would continue without reason until either his passion for fighting was satisfied or he grew bored of her. This side of Takaguru annoyed Saisha to no end. He had great abilities that were hard to counter, and would be a valued ally in certain situations. He, however, liked fighting so much that it put him, and those around him, at risk. When, and if, he finally was allowed to participate in missions, he was going to get himself, or someone else, killed.

Tira had finally gotten to her feet, though she was still hunched over and breathing heavily. "Sorry 'bout that," Takaguru began his false apology. He was probably sincere about what he was about to say, simply because he wanted to prolong the fight. "Didn't mean to knock the wind out of you." He probably really hadn't meant to do it either. "I want this fight to be hard for me, not easy." Tira's eyes flared with anger and resentment.

Saisha could see that Tira was not normally a very hateful person, but as she corrected her posture, Saisha could see that at that moment, Tira hated Takaguru with every fiber of her being. Tira stared at him with an intensity that could have made some of the most confident people in the world flinch. Takaguru didn't, but he was just stupid.

Not only was he using his chakra too much, but he wasn't using his physical abilities as much as he should have. In fact he hadn't used one one physical attack yet in the fight. Tira, on the other hand, even using mostly physical attacks, was using her chakra more than he'd been using physical abilities. She'd used it to guide her shurikan, and to enforce the power of her blows with her bo-staff. Saisha was interested to see what other weapons she had in the other three scrolls she carried.

**--------------------------------**

Tira stared at Takaguru with the intent to kick his ass so bad she'd send him to the hospital. She grabbed the second scroll from her leg. As a rule in close-quarters combat, the aggressor usually took the most damage; this time she would wait for him to come to her.

She opened the scroll and ran her thumb down it, even though the blood coming from her thumb had half dried. There was still enough wet blood for a sufficient firing of the jutsu. She infused her blood with her chakra and fired the jutsu, effectively summoning two katana from the scroll. She grabbed the katana before they even began to fall and held them in front of her as she widened her stance and drew back her right foot directly behind her. The blade of the sword in her left arm crossed in front of her face, just below her line of sight to him. The other level with her waist and the tip pointed toward him.

He grinned at her from across the room. His attitude wasn't cocky or arrogant, however. Somehow, she really believed that all he wanted was a good fight. She'd give him more than that.

Takaguru began to do hand seals as Tira realized that she was about to give him exactly what he wanted. What he didn't know that it was kind of what she wanted as well. She was mentally prepared for the rest of the fight now. She gave him the same grin he'd given her only a second earlier. She widened her stance even more and gripped her katana so tightly that she felt the fabric that lined the hilt crunch beneath her grip. She couldn't see his jutsu, but if she attacked and with intensity once he reached her she still had a chance to win this fight. Relentless attack was her strong point anyway.

Takaguru jumped into the air and did a final hand seal, but he didn't fall to the ground. He seemed to levitate when he should have fell, giving her a slight grin which merged into a look of seriousness as he pulled two kunai from his ninja carrying belt and readied them in reverse grips. His body then suddenly without any muscle motion rotated toward her and began to approach her, with a circular object vaguely becoming visible because it parted the air as it moved. In seeing this Tira finally realized what Takaguru's jutsu was: he used the air itself, that was why she couldn't see it, it was just a solid.

As he approached in a crouch Tira's body tensed, but she did not move a muscle. She was excited to be fighting someone he never had before. Still well beyond her reach, Takaguru began to rise into the air. He was going to attack from above to compensate for his lack of reach. He reached the peak of his climb and jumped off of his platform of air. He spun as he flung on of his kunai at her. She deflected it with her katana, sending it to the floor where it stuck.

She looked back to the air for Takaguru. In his jump he had overshot her. He did two hand seals in mid air, still holding his second kunai knife. Directly above her he planted himself on a wall that she could not see, stopping his forward momentum. He kicked off the wall, coming almost straight down at her. He thrust his kunai at her and she jumped out of the way fairly easily.

In the middle of her jump, when Tira was sure she was out of his way, she stuck the katana in her left hand into the floor behind her, spun around it, and vaulted herself back toward Takaguru, picking up her katana as she flew toward him. Her arms behind her, she kicked forward with her right foot catching him in the side of the ribs before he cold either hit the ground or do a hand seal. As he flew back she realized that she had found out how to beat him. She had to attack before he used any hand seals.

**--------------------------------**

Takaguru felt the searing pain in his side as he flew away from Tira. His arm was still extended, but he had dropped his kunai when she had kicked him. As he started to fall to the floor he planted that hand on the ground and flipped himself upright. The pain from her kick returned and he knew that she had broken at least one of his ribs. He landed on his feet and began to look up to search for Tira, but he didn't need to. She was already directly in front of him winding up a strike with her katana. He reflexively leaned backward with a jolt and the sword barely missed his face.

He attempted to move his hands together to do a hand seal, but he felt a kick on them and they were forced apart. His eyes widened as she was already using the follow-through for another attack with her other sword. He let his legs collapse and fell towards the floor, dodging the sword narrowly once again. He planted his right arm on the floor and kicked at her feet. She jumped and avoided his attack, but while she was doing that he had reached inside his carrying belt and pulled out yet another kunai. He whipped it up at her face as another surge of pain riddled through his body. He ignored the pain as she tilted her head back in a dodge and, his hand still planted on the floor, kicked upward.

His foot connected with her jaw as she attempted to look back down at him. She dropped her swords and landed flat on her back, giving Takaguru time to get up as well. This was what he had wanted. He had wanted a good fight that made him sweat and gave him a challenge. He was glad he hadn't finished her off when he knocked the wind out of her earlier. He kicked her swords aside and away from her as she pulled out yet another scroll.

Tira bled from the mouth as a result from his kick. Her thumb had stopped bleeding, but she swiped her thumb across her jaw. She ran the blood down the third scroll and rather peculiar nunchucks appeared from it. They looked just like any normal nunchucks, but there was a blade that looked like a mini scythe blade on the end of each nunchuck. She looked pissed as she stared at him, holding her altered nunchucks out in front of her. Takaguru realized that he may not win the fight. It had been luck that he was able to get her away from him and now she looked even more intense. He felt himself smile in anticipation. He was about to get his ass kicked and he knew it, but he wouldn't go down without a fight. He wouldn't concede and let the fight go to waist.

**I stopped here because the chapter was getting long and I was only about halfway done with the fight. The rest of it will be continued in the next chapter. If anyone has any advice on how to make my fight scenes better then please feel free to review.**


	5. Who won?

**Once again, this was a fun chapter to write. I'm not sure if I stuck to the basic feel of Naruto, but if I didn't, I stuck to the character's personalities. They both love to fight and dialouge would have just taken away from the fight. Besides, these are the kind's of characters that speak through their fighting! I own nothing except my own characters.**

Tira stood approximately 15 meters from Takaguru to her estimate. She ran at him, twirling her modified nunchucks back and forth from hand to hand. Each time one of her hands was empty she flicked her wrist and three shurikan popped into her hand from the mechanisms attached to her arms. She threw them at Takaguru just before transferring her nunchucks to her other hand. She was forcing him to use his chakra so he would eventually run out. He did a few hand seals and held the last one like he had done before. The shurikan bounced off of the wall of air as she kept throwing more. The fight was on her terms now.

At about three meters from him, she ran out of shurikan. She kept running at him. In her last stride toward him she pivoted on her left foot and spun around as her momentum continued to move her toward him. She swiped her nunchucks at him, the blade on them aiming for his temple. The attack hit his wall of air and she transferred her weapon around her back with the recoil and aimed for the other side of his head. The blow was once again blocked by the wall of air, and again she used the recoil to attack once again. Her attacks were relentless, not giving him any time to release his hand seals, let alone do anymore.

She moved to attack at his stomach for about the fifth time when he did something she didn't expect. He raised his foot and kicked at her hand just before her weapon started to recoil. At that exact moment he released his hand seal and he nearly caught her in the wrist just before she jumped back. She stood there, just out of reach to attack, taking heavy breaths. She had worn herself out. Takaguru stood clutching his side where she had kicked him earlier. He breathed heavily as well. She must have broke a few ribs.

Before completely catching his breath, he charged her. She waited for one of his hand seals, thinking that he would once again attempt to use his jutsu to attack once again. She was surprised almost to the point of taking a hit when he punched at her face. She leaned backward and avoided getting hit by less than a centimeter. Before she could react he brought his elbow down on her wrist and she dropped her nunchucks. She took a step back, forced on the defensive.

Takaguru punched at Tira's face again with his left arm. This punch wasn't as forceful as his previous punch, but it was just as fast. She put up her right arm to block. Before she cold even bring her arm down after blocking his blow, he was bringing up his opposite knee towards her side. She took another step back to dodge. He lashed out again with his arm on the same side as the foot he had just tried to kick her with. She blocked and planted her foot behind herself.

She shoved his arm to the side, knocking him off-balance, and lunged at him planting both her palms dead center on his chest. He flew back, but managed to stay on his feet. Tira jumped back to put even more space between them. She landed on something round and nearly fell over before she regained her balance. Takaguru was standing, once again, almost 15 meters from her and was also attempting to recover and was breathing even more heavily than before.

Tira looked at her feet and saw her staff. She looked at the floor between her and Takaguru. Directly in between them she saw where she had stabbed the floor with her katana. She smirked as she rolled the staff up to one foot with her other and kicked it up to her hands. Takaguru looked steady now. Tira felt herself running out of strength, however. She wanted to finish the fight with the next attack.

**--------------------------------**

Takaguru attempted to control his breathing as Tira stared at him, her staff in hand. She smirked at him as if she had already won the fight. For a second when she had first summoned her nunchucks, he thought that she had, but now he wasn't so sure. He could see that she was wearing out. He could feel the ache in his muscles and the throb of pain in his ribs and chest, but he still thought that it was anyone's fight at this point.

He readied himself. He would need to use more chakra before he prepared to disarm her, but it was necessary if he wanted to stand any chance against her. She was still much better than he was in close combat, but in their last round he had neglected to think to use his kunai once he'd disarmed her. He would win this time.

She charged forward, running as fast as she appeared she could. When she had just barely passed the halfway point between where they originally stood, she thrust her staff into the ground. The staff lodged into a notch in the floor and she vaulted into the air. Takaguru watched in wait as she removed her last scroll from her leg and bit her thumb a second time. She ran her thumb down the scroll and it turned into a sword that was at least twice as big as her.

Takaguru now knew why she had vaulted herself into the air. She had needed the ability to move the giant sword and she wouldn't have had that if she had summoned the sword when she was on the ground. In the air, however, she could maneuver it much more easily. She angled the blade toward Takaguru and brought it down with a double-handed strike. Takaguru barely got his hand seals off in time and the blade hit his wall of air that he had summoned just above his head.

Before he could react, Tira was suddenly using the handle of the giant sword to propel herself downward, below the sword, and then directly toward him. She thrust both her feet toward his head and he released his hands from the seal to reflexively block her kick. Her feet hit his arms, but he couldn't hold the weight she had put behind the blow and his own arms collided with his face.

He flew backward with a sudden massive headache and as he landed flat on his back he heard something else slam into the floor with tremendous force. Takaguru struggled to his feet as he heard Tira's footsteps walking toward him. He began to laugh. His laugh was small at first, but grew as he continued it. It was not an evil laugh, but a laugh of enjoyment. As he finally stood up straight he exclaimed "Great! Now _that_ was the kind of fight I came here for!"

Tira was standing directly in front of him, glaring down at him because even though he was still standing, he was haunched over. She looked pissed. She practically spit her words at him. "You gave away victory just because you wanted a good fight?" Takaguru felt a fist slam into his face and the last thing he heard before he passed out was a girl shouting the word "Idiot!"

**I hope by now that all my readers have a taste for what I can do with fights. The fights really aren't my favorite things to write though. After all the fights at the beginning that help introduce the characters and their abilities I hope to put in some drama and romance as well as plot development. I hope the fights are enough entertainment before then. Once again, I ask for constructive criticism or anything that my readers can think of in the form of reviews.**


	6. Who's next?

**I believe it is time to tell my readers what my favorite part of writing is. I absolutely LOVE to make up characters and anything that goes along with them. I hope you enjoy the first significant use of direct characterization in my Fan-Fic! I own nothing except my own characters.**

Ki-Sho walked out to the two combatants. The girl who had called herself Tira stood next to Takaguru's unconscious form, facing in the opposite direction. Tira's body was extremely tense as if the fight hadn't released all her anger. Her hands were formed into fists and her knuckles were white. Ki-Sho saw blood trickle down from her hands. Something was getting to her, but his first priority was to attend to the loser of the fight.

Ki-Sho bent down over Takaguru, his face on the floor. Takaguru breathed with a light wheeze, but his breathing was steady. Ki-Sho turned Takaguru gently onto his back and lifted up his shirt. On the boy's left side he was already bruising from where Tira had kicked him. He definitely had some broken ribs.

With a sigh Ki-Sho began to prod and feel around the boy's ribs. Takaguru winced and opened his eyes. He smiled at Ki-Sho. "She's pretty strong ain't she?" The boy's voice sounded almost like he was attracted to her.

Before Ki-Sho could respond Tira spat her reply. "Shut the hell up!" Her voice filled with anger and a hint of sadness. Even though she didn't face Ki-Sho, he could tell her next statement was through gritted teeth because of the way she sounded. "I don't wanna hear another damn word." Her fists started shaking. Takaguru did as he was told.

For the moment Ki-Sho had to ignore her and tend to the boys ribs. Three of them were indeed broken, but luckily none of them were full breaks. They were all just cracked. That made the injury easier to heal. Ki-Sho did a few hand-seals and placed his hand over the broken ribs. He could see in his mind the bones slowly repairing themselves. Not bothering to heal Takaguru's bruises, Ki-Sho stood up. A few bruises would be good for the boy. He still needed to learn to take victory when an opportunity presented itself.

"You're fine" he told the boy. "Get back to your classmates" he ordered. Takaguru once again did as he was told. As he walked away, the boy glanced back with a look of confusion on his face. Ki-Sho couldn't help but think that the boy was a fool.

-------------------------------

Tira felt rage flow through her entire body as Ki-Sho approached her after attending to Takaguru. She ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek where she'd bitten herself when Takaguru had kicked her. She hated him. It was people like him, people who lived for the fight and nothing else, who got themselves and others killed. It was people like him that had gotten her mother killed.

She closed her eyes and fought back the tears as her fingernails dug even deeper into her palms. She started when she felt a hand come to rest gently on her shoulder. "M-mom?" She opened her eyes and, to her disappointment, looked into the face of Ki-Sho. He looked at her with concern as she winced in emotional pain. She had allowed herself to become lost in her thoughts about her mother.

Tira's mother had died when Tira was still an infant. She had been a ninja as well, but she had died on a mission. One of her companions had a lust for battle that had caused him to prolong a fight he could have ended earlier. He lost his life for not finishing off his opponent. The opponent followed Tira's mother's group and was able to kill the entire group just because her companion didn't finish the fight when he could have.

What upset Tira now was not that she missed her mother. Tira had been to young to even remember her mother. What tormented her was that because of people like Takaguru she didn't have a mother. What tore Tira up even more was the fact that she thought that she'd enjoyed the fight almost as much, if not more, than Takaguru had.

She was losing the battle against her tears. Ki-Sho squeezed her shoulder gently and shook her lightly. Her eyes focused on him without blinking as her tears nearly fell from her eyes. She moved her right hand put to her face and wiped away the moisture around her eyes surreptitiously as she pinched her nose. She took a deep breath and lowered her hand, which she saw was covered in her own blood. She realized her face probably had her blood on it as well now. "Damn-it" she sighed.

Seeing her hands, Ki-Sho grabbed them and examined them. As he did hand seals in preparation of healing her he spoke, but only loud enough for her to hear. "You must be very upset. I'm sorry. I'll give you a cloth to wipe the blood from your face in a minute."

He grabbed her hands and she felt a cool, tingly, soothing sensation where she had cut herself with her fingernails. Ki-Sho continued calmly as her hands healed. "Don't feel too angry at him though." She made a face at him. Ki-Sho smiled pleasantly, then his look became stern as if he were trying to say something without actually saying it. She stared at him for a few more seconds and he chose to elaborate further. "Maybe Takaguru just needs someone to teach him that what he does is wrong." He raised an encouraging eyebrow at her.

"Hmph!" she didn't want to believe it, but Ki-Sho was probably right, and she was probably going to have to be the one to teach Takaguru the lesson. Ki-Sho released her hands. "I have a cut in my mouth too" she told him. She opened her mouth to show him and then closed it when he nodded.

He smiled and moved his hand to her cheek. The now familiar healing sensation filled the cut on the inside of her mouth. When he finished he pulled out a white handkerchief and threw it in her face. "Keep it" he ordered. She grabbed the cloth and wiped her nose and eyes with it before taking it away from her face. She began wiping off her hands as she walked back to the group. She felt strangely comforted. She smiled and silently thanked Ki-Sho as he began to pick up her weapons and carry them out of the way. He left the giant sword where it was.

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Tira walked by Mina and Mina lightly hit Tira on the arm as she smiled brightly, enjoying herself. "Good job kid!" she exclaimed. Tira said nothing and sat down, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. Mina shrugged. She knew that Tira was probably exhausted. It had been a very interesting fight. Tira had admirable abilities in close combat. At a distance, however, her abilities were limited. She'd need to be paired with others that could help her with that in some way.

Mina was getting ahead of herself. She needed to see the rest of the freshmen fight before she thought about groupings. She turned back toward the group and eyed every one of them down. She didn't want to pick Onimaru quite yet. She had already seen some of his abilities and right now she wanted to observe what the others had to offer.

She randomly picked from the others who remained. Her eyes rested on the girl who had brought her dog. Mina pointed at the girl and smiled wickedly. The girl noticed and turned to her dog. "You ready?" The dog barked with enthusiasm and the girl nodded. They walked out together toward the center of the already battle-scarred room. A boy already waited for her there.

Mina noticed Ki-Sho standing on her left side. He addressed her casually. "So what do you think of Tira?"

"Well I'll remember her name if thats what you're asking." She kept her voice casual, but she really wanted to yell out that she wanted to train Tira herself. "I never expected any of them to beat a sophomore. Let alone the first one out there." She paused to think. She shuddered in excitement and grinned widely. "We'll have to see if the other freshmen have what it takes!"

Ki-Sho just chuckled quietly. "You'll never change will you?"

She smiled happily. "You bet your ass I won't!"

**Tira's past was fun to make, even if a bit emotional. Of course when don't the characters in Naruto have problems?! Lol. Tira is actually not one of my favorite characters. My favorite hasn't been introduced yet, but he is a sophomore and I loved making him. Look for the name Umatsu and you'll know thats him!**


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